


Descent

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hades/Persephone parallels, Manipulations, Molly Hooper gets the respect she deserves, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is the story of how a girl who lived in the light was led into the darkness. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Descent

**Author's Note:**

> For the sherlockmas prompt: _Jim/Molly; Hades/Persephone_
> 
> Originally published on my LJ 31st July, 2011, ie. before Series 2 aired. Some parts have been rewritten, particularly in light of S2, but it's worth keeping that in mind.

_This is the story of how a girl who lived in the light was led into the darkness._

Despite studying and working with the dead ever since a rather unexpected decision just before her exams, Molly’s life had never been dark or depressing. If anything, she knew, she came off as a little bit too happy. 

She was capable of having dark thoughts as much as the next person, but she didn’t like to dwell on them. She’d always believed, ever since her sunlit childhood, that being nice was more important than anything else. After all, in her experience, being nice was usually all she had left. When people annoyed her, she just tried to smile at them, before ducking away in embarrassment. People liked her being nice; it didn’t leave much of an impression, but that was better than hurting anyone. Her mother had always told her when she was little that if she thought something bad about someone, she had to think of something good right away to balance it out. Don’t hurt anyone, because there was no knowing what might come of it. That advice had never let her down before. Besides, she didn’t dare say what she was really thinking. Better to pretend and be liked, but invisible, than to speak out and be hated. 

Really, the first time the sunshine – her resolve – even slightly wavered in her life was when Sherlock Holmes strode into her mortuary. Not the man himself, although he was impressive enough (Molly knew her schoolgirl crush was silly, but it couldn’t be helped, and none of her interests ever came to anything anyway). No, it was how he treated the bodies. Most people edged around them with respect, or reacted with horror or sorrow at their state. Sherlock simply raised an eyebrow and pulled out his riding crop. 

Molly wasn’t entirely sure she liked it, though possibly that was because it was a little too close to her own view: that they were dead and there was nothing else that could be done. (Her father had certainly never come back; better to think about the living.) She’d never dreamt of expressing it like that; she definitely couldn’t imagine acting the way Sherlock did, not caring who disagreed with him. Still, that was Sherlock, and it wasn’t long before she’d managed to accept it as one of his (many) quirks. She hated to judge people (as if that stopped them judging her), and he wasn’t hurting anybody alive – at least, no one who didn’t deserve it. Actually, she admired him, which of course didn’t help that crush of hers. 

Certainly it hurt when the doctor showed up and she could see how instinctively they just clicked together, in the same way it had hurt when her sort-of boyfriend (except she’d never dared to call him that, since he never called her anything similar) had run off with some French intern, or when her supposed best friend from school had started avoiding her the moment she’d settled on her preferred career. Still, that was life, she told herself breezily (and sometimes more firmly to the mirror, when she could feel herself wavering). That was _her_ life: always overlooked when it came to the personal, but that was okay, because other people were happy with their choices and she was good at what she did. She was told she brightened up people’s day, and that helped her when she was just unlucky. Again and again she repeated what her mother had taught her: focus on the good and the _alive_. 

She’d been convinced Jim shared the thought, when he’d bumped into her and spilt her coffee and insisted on getting her some more. When they’d chatted for the first time in the hospital cafeteria, he’d just seemed so upbeat, so exactly in tune with what she was thinking that she’d had a hard time believing it was really happening; that those moments she imagined and saw happening to other people all the time could actually happen to her too. Still, that was Molly: believing anything of anyone. 

Guiltily she admitted to herself at night – back in her flat, where nobody but the current strays would know – that she was maybe hoping to get Sherlock’s attention, just a little bit. Not that she thought that she could make him jealous, because of course that wouldn’t be right, but maybe make him notice her. As a person. 

It was the kind of behaviour she’d always been afraid of. But it was alright, because she was still having such a good time. So _happy._

Then Sherlock told her Jim was gay – and why would he lie, Sherlock didn’t lie, but Jim _couldn’t_ have been lying either – and Molly had run to confront him. She’d tried to act as if it couldn’t be true, even though as she tried to say “isn’t it silly” she felt the tears coming. 

And Jim just looked at her. Not blankly, but as if she was boring him. His entire body language had changed, she realised, a second too late: less hunched, more confident, along with ice in his eyes that he couldn’t have been faking. Nobody could fake something like that. 

“Who are you?” she asked, ashamed to hear her voice tremble as she tried to control herself. 

He just shrugged, already turning away. “Sorry, little girl. None of your business.” Even his voice was different – lighter, yet at the same time colder. Deader. He hardly needed to explain that he wasn’t sorry at all; it was just a line, like everything else he said. 

She couldn’t just let him go. Not without an explanation. Things like this didn’t happen to her – not before Jim. This wasn’t her life. 

Apparently, now that he didn’t have to play a part, he’d lost his patience as well. After she’d followed him down the corridor and into the stairwell, still pleading and not thinking about how desperate (and pathetic) she sounded, he wheeled around and slammed her against the wall hard enough to make her lose her breath, pinning her with an arm against her throat. 

“Listen, little girl, your _Jim_ never existed. _This_ never existed.” He grabbed her face, forcing her to look him in his cold, dead eyes, even as the rest of his face twisted into what might have been real anger if there was anything real about him. “Stop living in that little fantasy world of yours. You are _nothing._ You’re _easy_ , with those delusions of yours. The world isn’t _good_ , it isn’t something _light_ and _happy_ , it’s _dark_ and _dank_ and you can bet your daddy didn’t just get flown off that cliff by the fairies. You have to _take_ what you want. You’d think you of all people would know: some people can’t _wait_ to die, and some can’t _wait_ to do it for them.” 

He let her go and she collapsed, falling in a heap at his feet. “This has nothing to do with you. Run along and do some growing up, little girl.” 

This time, when he walked away, she let him go. 

Unable to face the rest of the day (or Sherlock), she went home, not even sure what illness she’d pretended to have. (Lying to skip work – completely unlike her.) Of course what had happened was awful. However, it was only worse when she tried to call him, despite what he’d said. 

Nothing. Nothing over the phone, nothing online, and when she tried to visit him, she realised she didn’t even know where he lived. 

So she had been left in her flat by the phone and online, scared and waiting for…something. Except there was no reason for anyone to contact her. She hadn’t meant anything. Why should they? 

For the first time in her life, not mattering actually _hurt._

(Hadn’t it always?)

Somehow the full extent of those horrible words didn’t sink in until a policewoman had come to her home – not Sherlock – and explained that ‘Jim’ had really – had _always_ – been Moriarty. A killer. Amongst other things. 

God, his _eyes_ … 

They’d left her alone for a little while, to get her thoughts straight. She knew her stunned stutters and fumbles hadn’t given them much, and the woman had told her they’d be in touch in the next few days. 

Why was this happening? What had she done to deserve this? She’d tried so hard to be good; why had _she_ been the one who suffered? 

Sherlock, apparently. She’d dared to encounter Sherlock, which apparently had opened her up for someone to play her for a fool. And nothing _nice_ could wish that away. 

After all, why else would anybody be interested in _her_? 

After that, the mortuary was the only place she felt at home anymore. Felt _safe_ , even. The dead didn’t lie, or use her. They were just dead. 

Sherlock had used her too. Had used her long before Jim – _Moriarty_ – had. Now, with his sudden absence from her world – possibly disgust that she hadn’t seen it right in front of her, that this time she couldn’t give him anything – she could see that. She’d always been so nice, so accommodating, so forgiving and so hopeful that she had let him use her any way he wanted. No wonder Jim had chosen her. As he had said, she’d been easy. 

It wasn’t a nice moment at all when she realised that really Jim had only made the logical decision. Anybody could have made the same choice – even herself, when she thought about the people around Sherlock. 

She tried thinking positively again, clinging to the world she’d lived in with her mother for so long, but she just heard Jim’s – Moriarty’s – voice and her mother’s delusions stuttered and died. For the first time, she looked at her little world of light, and it was like it had been tainted. She’d brushed so close to Death that she’d taken a little bit of it – of _him_ – away with her. 

The policewoman had said that she’d been lucky. Being that close to a killer and getting away safely… Molly was so _very_ lucky he’d had other things, other _people_ on his mind. 

Molly had always worked with the dead, but that was just a job. Almost being dead... That was something else altogether. She knew she should be terrified just thinking about it, but somehow she found herself…intrigued? Maybe because to her death was something so natural; or it was some sort of delayed reaction; or you couldn’t ever escape that without changing.

She still had an apartment filled with pink and any stray cats who fancied their chances. She still wore cute cardigans and did her best to smile at complete strangers. But now it all…jarred. Like something was off. 

Like she’d left something behind. Or brought something with her. 

Whatever she had done, it didn’t seem like much at first. The pink bothered her; she tried covering it up with pictures. Her clothes were easy enough to sort through, although obviously she couldn’t chuck all of them out, and she was still too scared to wear something completely different. But slowly it all started to build up. She wasn’t the same person anymore. 

Probably the first time she realised just how far that was true was also the first time she saw Sherlock for a case after hearing the news. She’d been bracing herself for his dismissal; for his blunt comments on her choice of men; for his questions about Jim. What she hadn’t expected was that on seeing him she would feel nothing. 

That crush of hers, which she’d been nurturing ever since she had laid eyes on him, had just vanished. Gone. Not that she was completely indifferent, but now something about him set her on edge. He didn’t disturb her in the same way as others; this was something else. Something that got under her skin. 

The pink was too much in her flat. She was going to have to completely redecorate. Or move altogether. 

The penny only dropped the first time she dreamt about Him. She awoke, alone, sweating and gasping, sheets twisted around her, and felt more complete and alive than she had in weeks. 

That wasn’t right. She was pretty certain she could have asked anyone – well, probably not Sherlock, and she was starting to have doubts about John too, after properly watching the two of them – and they would have told her that having those sorts of dreams about a manipulative killer was very not right. Molly would definitely never have expected it of herself; except when she remembered it later, she didn’t feel surprised or ashamed, just _interested_. Increasingly it felt like all of her old crush on Sherlock had moved onto Moriarty, and more: she’d never felt almost obsessed with Sherlock. She hadn’t hoarded her thoughts about him, like something thrilling and secret. 

It was definitely _Moriarty_ in her dreams. Not Jim. 

Still, she told herself that it was okay, in a relative way, since it wasn’t like Moriarty even remembered her. Dreaming about him at night – and maybe even when she was awake – was as far as it went. (How had he faked those eyes? Had she ever looked at them properly?) (God, she wanted to see them again.) However much she wanted it otherwise, he was part of Sherlock’s story, not hers. 

Apparently he didn’t agree. 

She wasn’t sure what exactly had drawn his attention. Maybe he had always intended to come back for her, once she’d realised he was still there in her head. Had he always been keeping an eye on her, showing her his real face because he knew it would stay with her? Did he enjoy leaving a little bit of himself with girls like her? Or maybe it was only while watching Sherlock, when he had noticed her change in allegiance, that he’d changed his mind. 

It might have been because of a dozen small things she’d done since he left that made him curious about the possibilities. Probably she would never know; she didn’t care. All that mattered was that he came back for her. 

One time she woke up in the middle of the night – not surprising on its own, she’d been sleeping rather erratically – to find him standing at the bottom of her bed, lit only by the streetlight outside, staring at her. 

She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t sure if she was even surprised. 

“Hey there, doll.” His voice sounded different. Some accent she couldn’t place. “Miss me?” 

She had the strangest urge to pull her duvet up to cover herself. His appearance made her think of old horror movies; without realising it she raised her right hand to her neck. Apparently he understood the movement. “Um, no, I’m not a vampire. Don’t be so _obvious_.” Which would have made absolutely no sense, coming from anyone who wasn’t _him._

She took a deep breath, forcing her grip on the sheet to relax. “What do you want?” 

“Oh, like that’s a way to say hi after so long.” He smiled – wide and with teeth, like a wolf – as he sat at the end of her bed. He put a hand on the sheet just over her ankle, and she could feel the heat like he’d gripped her. “ _You_ , of course. I hear I’ve rather left your crush on dear _Sherlock_ in the dust.” There was something in the way he said that. Definitely possessive. She wasn’t sure about whom. 

She swallowed. “So? That’s normal for you, right?” Not that she wanted it to be, but she’d half-convinced herself that Moriarty had a whole string of hopelessly devoted girls from his earlier escapades at his beck and call. 

“Hardly.” She blinked in surprise as he moved forward, crawling like an animal – a predator with his pinned prey – up the bed to look her in the eye. 

Seeing them again just proved it to her: they weren’t Jim’s eyes; not even close. Anybody else might have called them ‘dead’ - she had at first – but she knew what dead eyes looked like, and now that she was finally seeing them again, she could correct her earlier thoughts. There was a spark in them which didn’t come from outside; a spark she must have spotted before, finding its way into her dreams with the rest of him. 

“Now don’t get me wrong, people just _love_ me when I want them to. But when people like you find out the truth?” He leant in closer and she caught her breath. “When I don’t need you anymore?” God, he was so close, the last line murmured less than a breath away from her lips. “You’re the one who fell in love with _Moriarty_ , doll.” 

She wasn’t exactly sure who kissed whom. Those words were practically a kiss in themselves; all she did was close what imaginary distance there was left. 

Technically he didn’t stay the night. When she woke up in the morning, he was gone. That was just as well: she didn’t think she was ready to see her dark god in the sunlight; surely he would simply melt away. 

He was there again a week later though, just as she was wondering if it really had been just a glorious, dark dream; and again a few days later. Looking back, he tended to appear just before Sherlock would sweep into her mortuary. As if he could predict precisely what the detective would do next. The thought made her smile secretly to herself when Sherlock tried to use his own tricks on her – something that only made her smile wider, because she wasn’t a silly girl anymore, and someone else had already won. 

She was only really surprised when the note came – or rather appeared in the middle of her living room, as if it had always been there – along with a parcel. 

_Dress up, doll. Time to show you the world._

It was clothes: only (tight black) jeans and a (low-cut) vest top, but still, clothes she would never have dreamed of wearing before which now felt _right_. And she knew he must be watching her anyway, so she wasn’t surprised when the buzzer went just as she ran a brush through her hair one final time. 

Outside was a plain black car – one with a driver who nodded to her, before driving her (via a route she lost track of only three roads in) to a club on the other side of London. Before she could figure out whether she was supposed to follow the crowd of others to the back of the queue, she felt a hand on the centre of her back and His voice low in her ear. “Relax. You’re with me.” 

She let herself be guided towards the bouncer, who stood aside the moment he caught sight of Moriarty. And then they were in, and, as promised, Moriarty showed her _his_ world. 

It was insane. If anybody had ever warned (or promised) her that one day she would be pulled into the underworld – that she would _let_ herself be pulled – she would have laughed. How could something like that ever happen to someone like her? 

But here she was. On the arm of its ruler, no less. And loving every moment. 

Naturally people looked surprised to see her, but at the same time they obviously didn’t want to show it. She thought she could see (familiar) pity in their eyes as well – probably they assumed she was another of Moriarty’s deluded pawns. And perhaps to some extent she was, except she at least had seen his real face and was here despite it. Because of it. 

A few hours later she found herself in a rather different car: something huge and sleek and black, like a politician’s. Despite the fact that the interior was enormous, Moriarty slid in close enough for her to feel his body heat all the way up her side. 

“You know,” he murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “you clean up pretty well, Miss Hooper. I almost didn’t need to bother with the secrecy; I don’t think _anybody_ would recognise you like this.” 

She flushed, partly from his words and partly from the sensation of his hand sketching a pattern on her neck. “Do you always trace girls’ jugular veins when you’re trying to flatter them?” she asked lightly (in a way she never would have dreamt of doing before, but tonight she was practically drunk on him), with more than a trace of the hysterical giggle that had used to creep in when talking to Sherlock. 

His hand stilled, and when she glanced over, she saw that he was smiling. She promised herself that one day she’d get that smile to reach those amazing eyes of his. “Aren’t you just _full_ of surprises. Sherlock has _no_ idea who’s been standing there, has he?” 

She flinched slightly at the name, mostly because she wasn’t sure she liked hearing Moriarty talk about him. The glimmer of triumph in his eyes was unmistakeable. 

“And neither do you. Clever old me.” His fingers did at least leave her neck, instead tracing down her arm, first the brachial artery and then the radial. “I have a _proposition_ for you.” He paused, rubbing a thumb against the web of veins close to the skin at her wrist. “Well, several, really.” 

And he made her a deal: something to help him, and work against Sherlock. She would keep her day job – or whatever hours it entailed – staying in Sherlock’s vision and keeping up the appearance of naïve little Molly (which meant those clothes had to stay for now), knowing that any day, any _moment_ , Moriarty might reappear to reclaim her. Sherlock thought he could still use her, which gave Moriarty someone who could watch and listen to him “and his little pet” – as she’d noticed (increasingly bitterly), Sherlock tended to talk and act as if she wasn’t there. In addition, she was in position in the hospital should Moriarty want to slip him a little something. 

_A perfect little spy_ , he called her. She wondered whether he liked her because she came for free, at least in the traditional sense; she also wondered whether she cared. People knew who she was now. Important people. People who _respected_ her, if only by proxy. Nobody had ever even cared that she was there before, and it took quite a lot of getting used to. 

She moved, in the end. Moriarty provided the money for the flat and the furnishings – he insisted he couldn’t let any woman of his live in a place like _that_ , and she played the possessive phrase through her head happily for days afterwards – but let her choose the location. He said she knew best what wouldn’t seem suspicious. She knew it for the enormous compliment it was. 

She wasn’t _safe_ in her new life, not by a long shot. Obviously the underworld was somewhere dark, and in the light there was always a chance, however slim, that Sherlock might actually notice her for long enough to see through what was now a disguise and realise who she had become. Even once you were past that, on top of the perils of a double life, obviously Moriarty was hardly the poster boy for stability. It took time and some near misses – on one occasion it was only her driver (and, she realised, her bodyguard if necessary) Reg’s timely intervention which saved her life – but she quickly grew used to his transient moods: the sudden outbursts and the manipulative smiles, the ‘Jim’ to his Moriarty. She gradually learnt to deal with them; on some occasions, with practice, even to control them. 

She wasn’t even aware of the magnitude of what she’d done, the first time he had flown into a rage in her room and instead of cowering away she had crept closer, holding him and whispering comfortingly in his ear, reminding him of who he should be angry at. She was used to her cats acting like this: lashing out at anything close to them, regardless of responsibility. It was only later, when for once he had fallen asleep first (she hadn’t even thought he _could_ fall asleep when he’d first reclaimed her), that she actually processed that she had managed to talk down one of the most dangerous men on the planet without a scratch. And after that, like everything else, it just improved with practice. 

Reg was the one to tell her how thin a line she had been walking. “You know, miss, don’t take this the wrong way, but a lot of us thought you weren’t going to last.” 

She shifted to the left, trying to catch sight of his expression in the mirror – and to make sure he could see hers. “In what way?” 

“Well, you know Moriarty, miss.” 

She smiled. “Yes, you could say that.” 

“He has these fancies, miss, you know the ones. We figured you were one of them. Didn’t think you’d last the first week. Some said he was just stringing you along to get a spy near…well, you know who.” People who worked for Moriarty didn’t like mentioning Sherlock, she’d noticed. Understandable: the name could pull some surprising reactions out of her Moriarty. 

“People don’t think that anymore?” 

He shook his head firmly. Good old Reg. “No, miss. Not the way you act around him. They say…” He paused, obviously searching for the exact right way of phrasing it. Another trick that paid off well in Moriarty’s employ. “They say you’re the only person who’s ever been able to calm him down. I reckon some of them are more scared of _you_ now.” 

She shifted back again, away from the mirror. She had no idea what she thought of that. People had never really noticed her before Moriarty; now they were scared of her? That was…interesting. And terrifying. And thrilling. Rather like Moriarty himself. 

Of course, it had all been part of a plan. One thing she had learnt from all of her time with Moriarty: no matter how random things might seem, there was always a plan. 

“And you’re it, Mol,” he murmured in her ear. 

“I’m what?” 

“The Plan.” She could practically hear the capital letters. “Sherlock’s still got his eye on me – _don’t_ get jealous – and you know how he is, so _lucky_ all the time. I try to plan for _everything_.” 

“And which plan am I?” 

He pursed his lips, looking at her intently. She liked it when all his attention was on her. “Say something happens. Someone turns traitor, or Sherlock and I decide we can only go down together. Let’s say someone half-competent gets onto the case. What happens to all this?” 

“Moran,” she said without thinking. He was the obvious choice. 

“ _Very_ obvious, Mol. He can run it, but they’ll know that too, if Sherlock actually tells them anything. That’s why I always have a back-up plan. What’s the point of winning the first round if they’ve got you at the second?” 

“A back-up…” she started to repeat, before trailing off as the realisation hit her. Somebody not even Sherlock knew about. 

He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to. 

He left her alone for a few days and nights after that. Probably he had realised – he had _planned_ – that she would need some time to work through the implications. She needed every minute as well, since even when she could somehow comprehend the extent of what had been said, she wasn’t sure how to deal with it. 

In the end, it was Sherlock of all people who snapped her out of it. Roughly a week after Moriarty’s announcement, he broke off abruptly from announcing the results of an experiment, peered closely at her, and actually asked what had happened to her. The shock of acknowledgement – accompanied by the terror of discovery – finally brought her back to the world. 

He turned back to John, back to her, so _trusting_ , and she knew exactly what the answer was.

As if by magic – the same magic as ever – Moriarty reappeared in her doorway that very night. “Well?” 

She just smiled at him, pulling him closer. “Who am I to argue with one of your plans?” 

Which was why, when the news came – not that she entirely believed it, not when she knew what Sherlock done and remembered how insistent Moriarty has been about Moran collecting his body – she met John Watson’s broken gaze and thought, _‘Round two.’_

Moriarty didn’t have to worry about his kingdom. 

That was what queens were for.


End file.
